Csaba Vedres was a founder member of After Crying, one of Hungary’s most well-known progressive rock bands. Since leaving that band he has embarked on a solo career and this is his fifth solo album. While most of the instruments are provided by Csaba in the form of one keyboard or another, he also has guests who add violin and brass. The vocals are in English, with both English and Hungarian lyrics provided in the booklet. This is in many ways more of an orchestral/classical album than it is a progressive rock album, and in fact the only piece on the album not written by Csaba is an adaptation of the final scene of the opera ‘Boris Godunoff’. But the music does vary quite a lot, with “Hitch-hike To Las Vegas” having a much more funky modern style, while “Lay Down” is almost Gregorian in its’ delivery but also contains spoken sections.

There is a lot going on in this album, and it is truly progressive in the way that it moves from one style to another, while maintaining fairly close links to classical roots. There is little in the way of rock but in some ways it is sometimes similar to some of Wakeman’s work without the overblown grandiose pomposity, while at others it has a much more modern bent. Because it moves around so much I found that I could only play it in small chunks, as opposed to listening to the album in its’ entirety, but feel sure that this is down more to my personal taste in music than in any failings on the album’s part. Probably not a record I will listen to a great deal, as I know that this label has many more albums that I would rather listen to instead.

Kev Rowland